FIG. 1 illustrates a prior-art legacy point-of-sale (or service) terminal 100. The POS terminal 100 includes a PIN pad 110, a printer 120, a scanner 130, a signature-capture platform 140, a check reader 150, a register 160 and communications links 170, 180, 190, 1A0 and 1B0.
The links 170, 180, 190, 1A0 and 1B0 communicatively and respectively couple the PIN pad 110, the printer 120, the scanner 130, the signature-capture platform 140 and the check reader 150 to the register 160. Each link is a direct (point-to-point) connection between a peripheral and the register 160. Communications over each link follow a legacy protocol: RS485, RS232 or Universal Serial Bus (USB), for example.
Each of the peripherals 110 through 150 represents a service available to the POS terminal 100. The POS register 160 contains the intelligence to operate and coordinate the peripherals 110 through 150 in order to perform the functions of a POS terminal. The POS register 160 maintains the state of the these peripherals and also the state of any ongoing transaction.
An example of prior-art POS-register intelligence is the operating system of the model 4690 POS terminal (available from International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y.) and its application software. The IBM model 4690 operating system runs software such as General Sales Application (GSA), Supermarket Application, Drug Store Application and Chain Sales Application, all known in the art.
(Windows-based POS registers 160 and Windows POS applications are also available. Windows is a class of operating systems available from Microsoft Corp., Bellevue, Wash.)
IBM model 4690-based POS systems have known problems. The operating system is monolithic. All peripherals that the POS system 100 is to support must be determined at the time the operating system is constructed (compiled). Adding a new service involves configuring and compiling a new version of the operating system. Adding a new service also involves acquiring application software that can take advantage of the new service.
Adding a new service requires loading the new operating systems, the new application software or both. This loading often requires the system 100 to be taken offline, thus disrupting the business of the merchant. As such, adding new services can be time consuming—even prohibitively so.
Accordingly, a point of sale or service is desirable with greater availability on the addition of peripherals or services.
These and other goals of the invention will be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art on reading the background above and the description below.